Colombia’s Christian Alt-Right – Jacobin – Jacobin magazine
The defeat of Colombias referendum in October of 2016 was a shocking development. Liberal and left-wing observers failed to predict that voters would be won over by the Rights fear-mongering anti-peace campaign.
In Colombia, ideological vestiges of the Cold War have been refashioned to direct fear and anger towards a fictional gender ideology that supposedly poses a spiritual threat to Christian values. In the lead-up to the peace referendum, right-wing groups were able mobilize the imaginary threat of a queer, communist conspiracy to generate panic and turn it into political capital.
Its time we grappled with the gruesome consequences of a political conjuncture in which online media figures, conservative religious movements, and a generalized politics of fear all intersect to shore up support for the Right, even in a country poised to overcome a persistent conflict that has raged for more than fifty years.
After four years of negotiations between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Popular Army (FARC-EP), an end to Colombias long internal conflict seemed near. But in October 2016, with only 37 percent of the almost 35 million eligible voters showing up to the polls, the peace agreement was rejected by a margin of just 50.21 percent.
A few days after the failed referendum, Juan Carlos Vlez, manager of the campaign opposing the peace agreement, was interviewed by La Repblica, a well known newspaper in Colombia. According to Vlez, the success of his campaign was due to two factors: 1) the importance of digital social networks over other media sources, and 2) a differential approach to messaging that targeted different class audiences.
The anti-peace right targeted high- and middle-income Colombians by telling them that they would be responsible for the economic burden of the agreement the cost of peace. Meanwhile, among low-income voters, the Right stirred fears about possible reductions to social welfare as the national budget changed to prioritize the reintegration of ex-combatants. But inflecting everything was an angry hysteria about sexual diversity a specter of creeping cultural deviance which the Colombian right successfully associated with the proposed peace agreement.
In Vlezs words, We were looking for people to go out to vote while pissed off. In this, Vlez and his collaborators were clearly successful. But to understand why this tactic was so effective, its necessary to go back months before the referendum.
In August 2016, the streets of large cities like Bogot, Bucaramanga, Cali, and Medellin were filled with thousands of people dressed in white shirts waving Colombian flags. They carried banners and chanted the only guideline the kids need is the bible. These mobilizations were convened through social media and endorsed by both Protestant and Catholic leaders. The marchers criticized the governments intention to open up a discussion about sexual diversity in public schools and railed against the institutionalization of what they referred to as gender ideology.
Oswaldo Ortiz, a Youtube personality and so-called digital pastor, exemplifies how conservative groups successfully used social media to link this fear about sexual diversity to opposition to the peace agreement. Ortiz is a thirty-something lawyer and a self-proclaimed heterosexual activist in a crusade against what he calls the gay lobby. In his Youtube videos, Ortiz mixes a conservative religious agenda with an easy-going, modern attitude. His videos show him jogging, often using hashtags such as #runningwithjesus.
Like conspiracy-minded commentators in the United States and elsewhere, Ortiz is obsessed with revealing the pernicious influence of gender ideology in Colombian society at large.
In one video, Ortiz presents footage of Humberto de la Calle, the governments chief negotiator during the peace process. The clip shows de la Calle at a press conference, repeating, You are not born a man, you become a man. You are not born a woman, you become a woman.
In another video, Ortiz features the Argentine reactionary Augustin Laje, whose latest book (The Black Book of the New Left: Gender Ideology or Cultural Subversion) argues that sexual diversity, feminism, and environmentalism replaced proletarianism in leftist politics after the fall of the Soviet Union. The books cover features an image of Che Guevara wearing striking red lipstick, superimposed over a rainbow flag.
In the interview, Laje defines gender as the cultural aspect of human sexuality. It becomes an ideology, he says, when the cultural aspect displaces the natural determinations.
In a similar vein, popular evangelical pastor Alejandro Ortiz recently wrote in an article addressed to atheists, gays, lesbians, extreme environmentalists, feminists, and evolutionists the day will come when God will put the saved on his right hand, and on the left yes, on the left the accursed. The evangelical right has arrived to Colombia, and arrived to stay.
While its true that the Colombian congress began implementing a nearly identical peace agreement just a month after the defeated referendum, the Colombian population remains politically polarized, which poses significant challenges for any future reconciliation.
In Colombia, drummed-up hysteria over gender ideology channels public support for the right wing by linking Christian fundamentalism with anticommunist rhetoric. Gender ideology evokes the specter of a conspiracy threatening traditional values like Christianity, heterosexuality, and market liberalism and allows the Right to mobilize fear in the service of their political agenda.
This tactic is nothing new. Throughout history, fear has proven to be a dangerous and effective political tool. During the Cold War, the threat of a nuclear attack kept the American population on guard, allowing the militarization of everyday life. More recently, the clash of civilizations narrative that laid the groundwork for the war on terror has successfully mobilized fear in the service of NATOs crusade against Islamic fundamentalists. Today, the upsurge in racism and xenophobia in the United States, materialized in Trumps Muslim Ban, recalls the right-wing fantasy of an armed Christianity capable of meeting the threat of hostile heathenism.
Colombia is no exception. In the 1980s, the National Restoration Movement (MORENA) was formed as a paramilitary front under the auspices of wealthy cattle ranchers, drug dealers, and politicians. The movement, led by paramilitary leader Ernesto Baz, claimed that its purpose was to defend traditional Christian values in Colombia.
In his book The Para-State: An Ethnography of Colombias Death Squads, anthropologist Aldo Civico describes how Colombian paramilitarism won support among the population:
Support has also come from common people, who are often thankful for the kind of order that [the paramilitaries] provide or, at a minimum, have seen them as a minor and necessary evil to exterminate the brutes the guerrillas, but also the desechables, literally the disposable people, the scum of the earth such as drug addicts, petty thieves, and homosexuals. The paramilitaries have functioned like a sanitation department, disposing the waste.
When Orlando Ortiz was criticized for promoting hate speech, he claimed that he faced persecution from Christianophobes in the Gay Lobby. When his Facebook and Youtube accounts were closed due to complaints, Ortiz declared that he and his followers were subjected to a Digital Genocide. Like alt-right reactionaries in the US and elsewhere, Ortiz attempts to flip the arguments against him by posing as a victim of hate speech whenever his right to promote hate speech is denied.
But since the implementation of the new peace agreement, at least twelve social leaders have been killed in 2017. Pro-agreement activists risk their lives as the government dismisses the existence of paramilitary activity in departments like Caquet, Choco, Antioquia, Cordoba, Cesar, and Valle del Cauca. In this historical context, the article by evangelical pastor Alejandro Ortiz entitled Christians Are at War with the LGBTI Community reads like a call to arms. There are victims of violence and persecution in Colombia but theyre not members of the Christian right.
As the Colombian peace process continues to unfold in uncertain conditions, we must remain attentive to the fear-mongering tactics of Colombias hateful right-wing tactics that have already proven troublingly successful, and that may prove successful again.
Read this article:
Colombia's Christian Alt-Right - Jacobin - Jacobin magazine
- White Americans who perceive themselves to be last place in the racial status hierarchy are most drawn to alt-right extremism - Nature.com - October 31st, 2024 [October 31st, 2024]
- Susan Olsen Says Brady Bunch Revival Was Scrapped Due To Her Alt-Right Politics - 106.3 The Groove - October 31st, 2024 [October 31st, 2024]
- Alt-right group gathers in Coeur dAlene with "SWAT Team vibes" - KHQ Right Now - October 7th, 2024 [October 7th, 2024]
- How the alt-right's political violence went from online to real life - WBUR News - October 4th, 2024 [October 4th, 2024]
- Meet the alt-Right Crunchy Mums Anti-vax mothers are consumed by paranoid love - UnHerd - October 3rd, 2024 [October 3rd, 2024]
- Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right by Jordan S. Carroll - Shepherd Express - October 3rd, 2024 [October 3rd, 2024]
- The alt-right Spanish leader promising to destroy a rotten system - The Times - September 19th, 2024 [September 19th, 2024]
- Amandla Stenberg Says The Acolyte Cancellation Was Not a Shock Due to Alt-Right Hate Toward the Series - IndieWire - August 29th, 2024 [August 29th, 2024]
- Amandla Stenberg Says The Acolyte Cancellation Was Not a Shock Due to Alt-Right Hate Toward the Series - imdb - August 29th, 2024 [August 29th, 2024]
- The Acolyte Lead Amandla Stenberg Claims Star Wars Series Was The Target Of Hyper-Conservative Bigotry From The Alt-Right - Bounding Into Comics - August 29th, 2024 [August 29th, 2024]
- The ugly conversion of Candace Owens The alt-Right promised her power and devotion - UnHerd - August 22nd, 2024 [August 22nd, 2024]
- Hawk tuah girl: How she became a bizarre and unwitting icon for the alt-right. - Slate - July 8th, 2024 [July 8th, 2024]
- The Boys season 4 episode 6 recap and Easter eggs: an alt-right cocktail party takes a nasty turn - Gamesradar - July 8th, 2024 [July 8th, 2024]
- Lesbian The Boys Actress Valorie Curry Glad Shes Mocking The Alt-Right - Star Observer - June 27th, 2024 [June 27th, 2024]
- Here's why lesbian actress Valorie Curry enjoys playing a right-wing role on The Boys - Gay Times - June 27th, 2024 [June 27th, 2024]
- Alt-Tech: Down the Far Right Rabbit Hole - Grey Dynamics - June 27th, 2024 [June 27th, 2024]
- How has Pepe the Frog become a far-right icon? - Far Out Magazine - June 20th, 2024 [June 20th, 2024]
- Save Europe: the alt-right movement spreading hate with dance music - Dazed - June 20th, 2024 [June 20th, 2024]
- TV Review: THE BOYS Season 4 is a Pizzagate parody of Donald Trump's Alt-Right - Comics Beat - June 16th, 2024 [June 16th, 2024]
- The kids are alt-right: why todays youth are embracing extremism - HeraldScotland - June 16th, 2024 [June 16th, 2024]
- Nicki Minaj Is Cozying Up To Ben Shapiro And Its A Good Reminder For Us All - Yahoo Canada Sports - February 6th, 2024 [February 6th, 2024]
- Alt-Right Wackadoodles Now Impersonating the NorCal Journalists Who Exposed Their 'Zoom-Bombing' of City Meetings - SFist - February 4th, 2024 [February 4th, 2024]
- ICYMI: Trump loses in court again, and Taylor Swift broke their alt-right hearts - Daily Kos - February 4th, 2024 [February 4th, 2024]
- The alt-right saw Taylor Swift as an 'Aryan goddess.' She shook them off as 'repulsive' - Daily Kos - February 4th, 2024 [February 4th, 2024]
- How the Welsh flag has been hijacked by the far-right in Brittany - Nation.Cymru - February 4th, 2024 [February 4th, 2024]
- Doja Cat Responds To Backlash Over Alt-Right T-Shirt: 'It's Not An Attack' - HipHopDX - December 17th, 2023 [December 17th, 2023]
- Marvel and DC Writer Mark Waid Rejects Mark Millar's Call To Root Out Comic Book 'Cancel Pigs', Dishonestly Paints ... - Bounding Into Comics - December 17th, 2023 [December 17th, 2023]
- Soda Jerk's Hello Dankness The Brooklyn Rail - Brooklyn Rail - October 5th, 2023 [October 5th, 2023]
- What We Know About 'Microchip,' the FBI's Far-Right Judas - Southern Poverty Law Center - June 30th, 2023 [June 30th, 2023]
- 'Against All Enemies' Explores Why Veterans Are Drawn to ... - Military.com - June 30th, 2023 [June 30th, 2023]
- The American alt-right wants to set up shop in the UK - Tortoise Media - May 20th, 2023 [May 20th, 2023]
- What you need to know about Princeton's James Madison Program - The Daily Princetonian - May 20th, 2023 [May 20th, 2023]
- Make a noise and make it clear! How John Farnhams Youre the Voice became Australias anthem - The Guardian - May 20th, 2023 [May 20th, 2023]
- Succession recap: season four, episode eight nothing is more sadistic than the words Is that even true? - The Guardian - May 16th, 2023 [May 16th, 2023]
- How younger voters will impact elections: How legacy media and social media impact old and young voters - Brookings Institution - May 16th, 2023 [May 16th, 2023]
- Is Mencken Based on Trump in 'Succession'? He's an Alt-Right ... - Distractify - May 16th, 2023 [May 16th, 2023]
- Irish Times apologises for hoax AI article about womens use of fake tan - The Guardian - May 16th, 2023 [May 16th, 2023]
- The Best Books to Read in 2023 - The New York Times - May 16th, 2023 [May 16th, 2023]
- The Reinvention of the Latin American Right - NACLA - April 13th, 2023 [April 13th, 2023]
- Pentagon leaks: how much damage will they cause? - The Guardian US - April 13th, 2023 [April 13th, 2023]
- Frog Decor Is Living in My Head Rent-Free - Architectural Digest - April 13th, 2023 [April 13th, 2023]
- Five Ways to Have More Constructive Disagreements - Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley - March 30th, 2023 [March 30th, 2023]
- Succession: The real people who inspired the HBO hit - VOGUE India - March 28th, 2023 [March 28th, 2023]
- The web firm that wants to stop you getting 'cancelled' - BBC - March 28th, 2023 [March 28th, 2023]
- Dutch Elections Produce Another Popular Wave But the Same Prime ... - Foreign Policy - March 23rd, 2023 [March 23rd, 2023]
- Trial of 2016 Twitter Troll to Test Limits of Online Speech - The New York Times - March 23rd, 2023 [March 23rd, 2023]
- John Krull: Waiting for the waves in Nebraska - Kokomo Tribune - March 23rd, 2023 [March 23rd, 2023]
- Denver's Black, Jewish communities focus on shared history of ... - The Colorado Sun - March 23rd, 2023 [March 23rd, 2023]
- The Dangerous Subtlety of the Alt-Right Pipeline - February 26th, 2023 [February 26th, 2023]
- How the Alt-Right Happened | American University, Washington, DC - February 10th, 2023 [February 10th, 2023]
- The Women Behind The 'Alt-Right' : NPR - NPR.org - February 10th, 2023 [February 10th, 2023]
- Kanye West Praises Adolf Hitler in Alex Jones Interview Billboard - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Michelle Malkin Fired After Defending Nick Fuentes - Mediaite - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Netflix Removed Kanye's 'Harmful Alt-Right Beliefs' From David ... - November 22nd, 2022 [November 22nd, 2022]
- Where Are All the Women on This Alt-Right, Anti-Choice, Toxic ... - November 22nd, 2022 [November 22nd, 2022]
- Forbes Gets Punked - Labels FTX Former CEO's Girlfriend a "New Darling ... - November 22nd, 2022 [November 22nd, 2022]
- Alt-Right Picks Wrong Side in Dutch Farm Crisis - November 22nd, 2022 [November 22nd, 2022]
- Is that an OK sign? A white power symbol? Or just a right-wing troll? - November 1st, 2022 [November 1st, 2022]
- Dark Enlightenment - Wikipedia - October 8th, 2022 [October 8th, 2022]
- Shapiro poised to break spending record in governor's race after raising $25M this summer - Pennsylvania Capital-Star - October 1st, 2022 [October 1st, 2022]
- Alt-right conspiracy theorist, Stop the Steal and Pizzagate pusher ... - September 17th, 2022 [September 17th, 2022]
- What the Woke Left and the Alt-Right Share - Project Syndicate - September 17th, 2022 [September 17th, 2022]
- Mothers of the movement: Leadership by alt-right women paves the way for violence - The Conversation - September 17th, 2022 [September 17th, 2022]
- Who is Ryder Ripps, Artist Trying To Take Down Bored Ape Yacht Club ARTnews.com - ARTnews - September 17th, 2022 [September 17th, 2022]
- White nationalism, fueled by social media, is on the rise and attracting violent young white men - Arizona Mirror - August 24th, 2022 [August 24th, 2022]
- Flags of the alt-right, white supremacists - pennlive.com - August 22nd, 2022 [August 22nd, 2022]
- January 6 Hearings Rile up Alt-Right Extremists Online - Business Insider - August 22nd, 2022 [August 22nd, 2022]
- When Did Racism Begin? - The Chronicle of Higher Education - August 22nd, 2022 [August 22nd, 2022]
- Standing Against Transphobia: On School Boards & in the State Houses - LGBTQ Victory Institute - August 22nd, 2022 [August 22nd, 2022]
- How Rad-Trad Catholics Weaponized the Rosary - The Atlantic - August 14th, 2022 [August 14th, 2022]
- Five years after her daughter's death at the Unite the Right rally, Heather Heyer's mother reflects - WBUR News - August 14th, 2022 [August 14th, 2022]
- That's A Price I'm Willing To Pay: Wyoming's Rep. Liz Cheney Emphasizes Role In Jan. 6 Investigation And Expected Loss Ahead Of Tuesday's Primary -... - August 14th, 2022 [August 14th, 2022]
- State officials reaffirm access to reproductive health services post-Roe | Five for the Weekend - Pennsylvania Capital-Star - August 14th, 2022 [August 14th, 2022]
- In an environment of threats and fear, Kansans have the chance to create a more loving state - Kansas Reflector - July 29th, 2022 [July 29th, 2022]
- Steve Bannon Found Guilty of Contempt Related to Jan. 6 Inquiry - The New York Times - July 29th, 2022 [July 29th, 2022]
- The Wendy Williams Shows YouTube Channel Is Gone - Them - July 6th, 2022 [July 6th, 2022]
- 'Minions 2' And 'Stranger Things' Show The Power Of Original Franchises - Forbes - July 6th, 2022 [July 6th, 2022]
- Alt-Right Incels at Deep State Daily Stormer Site Celebrate Buffalo ... - July 4th, 2022 [July 4th, 2022]
- How 'alt-right' MAGA extremism has infiltrated the Libertarian Party ... - July 4th, 2022 [July 4th, 2022]
- Trump and his mob tried to overthrow American democracy and threaten to try again - Ohio Capital Journal - June 28th, 2022 [June 28th, 2022]